Frank Piasta by Dietmar Elger (2000)

When asked about the central theme of his paintings, Frank Piasta replies unhesitatingly with one word: "transparency". Indeed, for visitors to Piasta's studio or exhibitions, this quality is perceptible at first glance, so that they cannot but agree with the artist. Yet as conclusive as Piasta's answer may be, the original question appears less than appropriate. Is it really accurate to speak of ?painting? at all in the context of these works? Frank Piasta's productions have many of the qualities and peculiarities of a relief or object. Certainly the painter had abandoned traditional oil painting on canvas as early as 1998. Ever since, Piasta has preferred white wood panels or aluminum plates as his ground. To these he applies clear silicon mixed with different pigments; he applies the pasty, glutinous mass to the surface with a broad scraper, or, in his smaller works, with a palette knife. To cover the entire surface, Piasta has to repeat the process several times, before turning to his second or sometimes third layer of pigment. Even after numerous superimposed applications, the pigmented synthetic substance retains that openness and transparency which the artist values so highly, and which endow the panels with their diaphanous lightness and painterly vivacity.

Frank Piasta began his studies under Gotthard Graubner at the Art Academy in Düsseldorf, continuing, after 1996, at the Academy of Arts in Berlin under Kuno Gonschior. Encouraged by these two teachers, he followed their example of abandoning traditional panel painting. By employing unusual mediums and tools not yet grown stale by use, he was able to find his own independent artistic direction and to wrest new possibilities of expression from the métier. Contrasting with Graubner's voluminous expanses of color and Gonschior's thick application of paint, frequently without the use of the traditional brush, Frank Piasta creates works whose layered silicon lends them both a corporeal materiality and a nuanced coloring.

The innovative use of thin sheets of aluminum since 2000 represents an additional aesthetic dimension compared to wood panel supports. Since the silicon overlaps the edges of the vertical surfaces, the colors appear to be floating in mid-air in front of the wall. The medium of paint attains an independent energy, one which embodies at once two seemingly antithetical artistic qualities. The materiality of the synthetic substance whose transparency and simultaneous three-dimensionality holds an almost irresistible tactile appeal for the viewer, is simultaneously confronted by the irreality of color: it communicates itself to the observer as a pure manifestation of light.

Despite their concentrated artistic vehicle, Frank Piasta's works are richly orchestrated. The interaction of the colors and the simultaneous transparency and structure of the surface generate a fascinating, inextricable dialogue. They are mutually dependent, engaging in an endless interplay. Viewers realize this the moment they try to visually isolate one of these painterly qualities in order to concentrate on it exclusively. Such an endeavor is, by its very nature, doomed to failure. For the structure of the materials applied only achieves presence in the picture through the paint, just as conversely the color is defined to a certain extent by the transparency of the medium. The attentive observer can discover changing nuances of color deep down in the material. The works thus function as active partners in a dialogue with visitors, and derive their appeal partly from this. Any slight shift of position in front of the work, every change in the angle of the viewer and incidental light will cause the colored surfaces to appear new and surprisingly different. Owing to their transparent look, the works can suddenly open up and let the coloring of the lower layers gush out. At other times, in contrast, their surfaces will condense into an opaque, monochrome wall.

Although Frank Piasta's technique - of spreading the pigmented silicon across the ground with a scraper - is rather mechanical, his works achieve an exceptionally painterly quality and richly structured surface, qualities that lend them an affinity to informal or even impressionistic paintings. A few of his oversized works, all left untitled by the artist, recall Claude Monet's depictions of water; from a modern-day historical perspective, they seem to formulate a contemporary, abstractionist response to these works (fig. A, B).

The American minimalist Donald Judd once said that his works were always complex but never complicated. The same might be said of Frank Piasta's pictures. They are created with limited and elementary means which, when combined, produce a multi-layered perceptual space. In the development of his works over the past few years, Piasta has only begun to exploit the full potential of his medium. Until now he has, for example, used no more than three different colors, which he always applies in the same vertical layers. The result is a richly structured surface, an iridescent, vibrant field with hues of varying intensities, textures like shot silk, and subtle transparencies. The paint's silicon base either enhances or mutes these effects, depending on its consistency. Given the specific method of application, the material accumulates above all near the top and bottom edges of the picture. In other areas of the panel, the silicon's surface may separate to produce an almost naked exposure of the underlying layers of paint.

Whereas other artists always define paint in terms of its material quality as well, paint in Frank Piasta's work manifests itself as a mere pseudo-value. Enshrined as it is within multiple transparent layers, it remains oddly intangible to the viewer, for it presents the pictorial plane at an indeterminable depth - one that seems suspended, in limbo. This theme is one Piasta has focused on in a new series of works started in 2001, and whose full potential the artist is only just beginning to explore (fig. C). In the medium-sized panels from this series, he mixes small fragments of dried paint into the silicon, with the result that they seem to be floating within a diffuse and pulsating space. They thereby articulate a perspectival illusionism of a kind lacking in the other paintings.

Frank Piasta numbers among those artists for whom the artistic means also constitute an end, who thematizes content and processes. The paint, silicon substance, and application all have functions that are not representative; they are self-referential rather than referring to an external context. As the sole and autonomous qualities of these paintings, color and material solicit the complete and undivided attention of visitors to the exhibition. Together with other artists, Piasta is working on something that one could describe as a School of Seeing or Visual Perception. The pictures serve as visual aids that compel viewers to see intensely and study closely; that teach audiences to recognize the intrinsic value of color as an autonomous perceptual quality and to observe the richly nuanced interplay of the various artistic elements. The artist has also maintained for himself that specific curiosity he demands of the viewer. It is the force driving his creativity. For each picture is also an aesthetic adventure whose outcome is uncertain. Frank Piasta's paintings cannot be planned and envisaged in advance. Small preparatory sketches, though produced with the same material, barely hint at the large-scale results. But even the finished work remains so largely co-determined, its appearance so heavily influenced by its surroundings, that it can never be more than an overture extended from the artist to the viewer. With the works of Frank Piasta, the adventure of painting only begins once the picture has left the studio.

Dietmar Elger

Translated from the German by Mary Fran Gilbert, Keith Bartlett and Ernest Bernhardt